The wish list

In my attempts to keep my snot-ridden, coughing ass awake at work (previous attempts today include not-at-all-clandestine Echo Bazaar-ing, doing every crossword puzzle in the building, and eating an entire bag of iced gingerbread cookies), I give you the Completely Unreasonable Holiday Wish List, 2010 Edition, in no particular order. NOTE: until Blogger makes it EASY to post pictures again, images will be restricted to my film posts. Seriously, WTF Blogger? Way to "fix" something that wasn't broke.

10. The Sater sofa: from IKEA, of course, this sofa is gorgeous and Jeremy and I fell in love with it the first time we went to IKEA together. In our joint-brain it occupies our Future!Home in Canada. IKEA's product picture looks black, but really it is a glorious dark brown.

9. "Lilith" pendant: from Etsy seller santiamnaturals. Beautiful pendant necklace, in gold and blue.

8. "Padme Nouveau": from Her Universe, an awesome online shop created for us girl Star Wars fans. The Padme t-shirt is just one of their wondrous offerings.

7. TARDIS cookie jar: along similarly nerdy lines, the TARDIS cookie jar from ThinkGeek is just calling out to have its very own spot on my kitchen counter.

6. The Historical Thesaurus to the Oxford English Dictionary: oh yeah, I would sacrifice babies to have a copy of this.

5. The "Graphite Drawing" dress: from ModCloth, of course. I love the hourglass shape and mod details.

4. "Queen Bennet" bedframe: from Jordan's. I LOVE metal bedframes, probably a consequence of reading too much fantasy in my formative years. This one is perfect.

3. "Julia" Frye boots: the perfect "if Anne Shirley were a hooker" boots, amirite? From Frye by way of Zappos.

2. The entire set of Animorphs: including the Alternamorphs, Megamorphs, and Chronicles books. SOMEDAY, PEOPLE.

1. Yoga retreat at Salt Spring Island, BC: Two words: oh yeah.

That winter holiday

Full disclosure: I LOVE CHRISTMAS. That is, I love the winter holiday season--I don't love the goddamn motherfucking assclownery that is the shit-for-brains "culture warriors" ruining things for everyone else.

But I don't want to talk about them. I want to talk about things I love about the month of December, because lo, they are legion.

1. Music: I really, really like Christmas carols, despite me not being even a little Christian anymore. I particularly like just simple instrumental versions of carols, particularly in public places while I am shopping. Much more calming and lovely than Jessica Simpson's Mariah Carey rip-off. Some of my favorites include: "Good King Wenceslas" (the loooooong version), "Far Far Away on Judea's Plain" (which I used to make my Young Women's girls sing when I was the Laurel class president, and no one ever knew the words except me), "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day", "The Holly and the Ivy", "Corpus Christi Carol", and "O Holy Night". I love Loreena McKennitt's two holiday albums, To Drive the Cold Winter Away and A Midwinter Night's Dream and heartily recommend them.

2. Food: As we all know, I love to eat. I also like baking and cooking, so the winter season is a great time of year for me and peeps like me. My favorite cookies to bake in the winter time are fudgy bonbons (which are a chocolate dough wrapped around a kiss, then drizzled with glaze after baking) and pecan kisses (pecans dipped in meringue and baked). I also love making mulled cider and wine, and I have an awesomely easy and tasty recipe for fudge--basically, melt together baking chocolate, sweetened condensed milk, butter, and your flavor of choice--peppermint and orange essence are great, as is mixing in peanut butter chips or marshmallow fluff. Christmas with my mother's family at home is great because we normally do a "non-traditional" dinner; no goose, ham, or turkey. Last year we had a fab gumbo, and this year we will likely do some kind of fish. One of my aunts always hosts a dessert party at her house Christmas Eve...yeah, she's one of my favorite family members.

3. Traditions: tradition! Ok, Fiddler on the Roof digression over. My family doesn't really have too many traditions--my mom buys me and my sister a Hallmark collectible ornament each year and we generally try to watch A Christmas Story as many times as possible on Christmas Day. Personally I like to watch the gorgeous, emotionally crippling film The Snowman every year too. This year was really the first year that I got to decorate my apartment exactly how I wanted, and I was sort of surprised at how much I DID want to. I like greenery and lights for the winter season, and that's about it, so now we have some mistletoe in our kitchen doorway, a wreath and some small sprigs (fake pine, of course :/), and white bistro lights strung up over our sliding glass door. Our bedroom has a teeny tree decorated with my assortment of Hallmark ornaments, goddess figurines, and stars, and surrounded by gifts. And candles--candles everywhere. I love candles at most times, but especially during the winter holidays, so many of which revolve around light.

4. Gifts: I love, love holiday shopping. You may commence thinking I am a bizarro now, but it's one of my favorite things to do. I like finding gifts that my loved ones will enjoy and I think I'm pretty good at it. I love wrapping gifts, although I am TERRIBLE at it (back me up here, DR SHE BLOGGO). I love the look of a tree with many gifts under it, waiting to be given away and torn into and loved. I love getting things in the mail that are pretty and funny and functional, not just bills and spam. And yes, of course, I love opening my own gifts. Especially if they are books.

5. Learning: every year around this time I like to bust out my old favorite winter holiday books (Little House in the Big Woods, The Dark Is Rising, etc.) and read new items, online and in bound books, about this time of year. There really is an astounding number of winter festivals around the world. Personally, I don't celebrate a holiday around this time in a religious sense--mostly I use the season to celebrate my loves and friendships and all the good things Lady Fortune has bestowed on me. I do like some of the exterior decorations and symbolism found in winter traditional holidays, specifically Yule or Christmas trees, candles and other lights (which are found in a variety of traditions, from Christmas to Yule to Solstice to Diwali to Alban Arthan to St. Lucy's Day to Saturnalia and Sol Invictus celebrations), and the red/green/white color theme, the origin of which is attributed to many cultures and celebrations.

Do you enjoy this time of year? What do you love or not-love about it? Do you have any particular traditions or celebrations?

The home within

Dear readers, today I direct your attention to a a recent post on Apartment Therapy which I think is worthy of our time. I love Apartment Therapy (though, is it just me or are a lot of the commenters snipey assholes?) and I love home decor and nesting and other husfrau-y things. I even like cooking sometimes. My mother would be so happy if she could read that! And here is me hoping that she doesn't read this blog.

Anyway.

So this AT post centers around the concept of "the home within us", indicating that the home we live in will ideally be the home that we envision in our heads as what home SHOULD BE. The author and presumably many other people had a different conception of home when they were growing up than what they were actually living in--I suppose most children do; likely it involves a house made of cupcakes or a castle. I love the house that I grew up in (and I will never, EVER forgive my mother and stepfather for selling it when I was 17, so if you are reading this, Mom, YOU ARE UNFORGIVEN LIKE A CLINT EASTWOOD FILM) and there were many fine, homey qualities about it, but the apartment I live in currently is far closer to my inner vision than my childhood home. However, the apartment is still a long way off from what is inside my heart. Behold, three lists!

Future Dream Home of Outstanding Awesomeness: Things That Must Be

+bookshelves. LOTS of bookshelves. A room full of nothing but books, if possible

+media of other kinds--music, movies

+no bare wood except perhaps for the floors; painted wood furniture is all right

+preferably tile floors

+small house, big yard; lots of trees and houseplants; a real garden--lanterns of all kinds, weird statuary, paths that go nowhere (or do they?), stone benches

+a king-size bed and a clawfoot bathtub

+fun art from all over; travel souvenirs and things; postcards

+windows, windows, windows

+bright colors and interesting furniture

Childhood Home: Things That Jibe, Things That Don't

+dark wood, Louis XIV (or whatever) chairs, embroidered seat cushions=yuck

+tile floors=awesome!

+big yard with a great garden=awesome!

+round kitchen table=yuck (I prefer corners. Not sure why)

+"Diana, get out of the shower!"=yuck (Sorry utilities bill, I love long showers)

+always, ALWAYS clean=awesome! and I don't know how she did it

+homemade food at all times=see previous

+a reasonable amount of books, mostly living in my room=awesome!

Current Apartment: Things That Jibe, Things That Don't

+bright colors all over and interesting furniture...well, we're on our way

+no bare wood...again, getting there; the table and chair set will be painted soon enough, as will one of my bookcases

+lots of books, but THERE CAN ALWAYS BE MORE. Same with media in general

+interesting furniture-->well, we do have a bright red armchair and a great eclectic porch set

+houseplants, if I don't manage to kill them o.O

+fun art. I feel like I have a good handle on this--we have a pair of molas, two Haida prints, a screenprint of a photo my uncle took in the 70s with his surfboard, tons of awesome superhero art, interesting mirrors...but again, there can always be more. I love art and will someday have a wall full of framed art.

+queen-size bed. Almost there!

+no yard, obviously, but we have plants and our porch is reasonably green

Our current apartment is very satisfactory. And I like living in apartments generally. But there is always that vision of the home within, something to work toward, something to dream about. What does your home-within look like?